POST-MORTEM: Why Obama’s ‘IPod Presidency’ Was Doomed. “America thinks of itself as being one of the youngest nations in the world. But as far as governments go, we’re one of the oldest: We’ve been operating continuously under the same constitution for more than 200 years now. A certain amount of what Jonathan Rauch has dubbed ‘demosclerosis’ was inevitable. And it’s now so far advanced that I doubt we’ll ever have an iPod presidency . . . at least not until an iPod is something that your grandmother used to listen to.”